Destruction and Rebirth in Coney Island
[Full article published in TDF Stages, July 17, 2018.] How Superstorm Sandy changed the trajectory of Fire in Dreamland Playwright Rinne Groff is obsessed with the obsessed, whether it’s an inventor’s […]
In ‘Mary Page Marlowe,’ Six Actors Create One (Un-) Exceptional Woman
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, July 12, 2018.] Six actors and a fake baby in sequential performances dramatize one woman’s life journey in Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlowe at Second Stage’s […]
Vivian Reed Performs Her Story to a Lena Horne Set List
[article as originally published in Theater Pizzazz, July 4, 2018.] We assembled to celebrate, with Broadway Baby and cabaret veteran Vivian Reed, what would have been Lena Horne’s 101st birthday. Some […]
Ezra, Henry and a Refuge From Adulthood in ‘Log Cabin’
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, June 26, 2018.] What happens when you fold three couples with overlapping friendships and lurking past connections up against one another, throw in […]
In the Theater of Nwandu, Black Men Yearn to ‘Pass Over’
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, June 19, 2018.] Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over, currently at Lincoln Center Theater, invites comparison with other plays but, in the end, stands on its […]
“The Camera is My Beloved”: Michelle Memran Creates Documentary Art with María Irene Fornés
[article originally published in HowlRound, June 12, 2018.] The Rest I Make Up is a poetic rumination by filmmaker Michelle Memran about playwright María Irene Fornés, now in her late 80s and living with […]
At Last, There’s ‘Peace for Mary Frances’ (and Lois Smith)
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, May 24, 2018.] In The New Group’s production of Lily Thorne’s painful and beautiful play Peace for Mary Frances, an extended family contends with an aging […]
Unpacking the Role of Women in Ibsen’s ‘The Enemy of the People’
[Full article published in The Theatre Times, May 12, 2018.] GOODMAN’S RESIDENT DRAMATURG ON HOW HER WORK GIVES TEXTURE AND SPECIFICITY TO A PRODUCTION. Consider the riddle of Neena Arndt’s work at the Goodman […]
Caryl Churchill’s ‘Light Shining in Buckinghamshire’ Feels Dim
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, May 7, 2018.] Caryl Churchill’s 1976 play Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, now revived Off-Broadway by New York Theatre Workshop, takes its title from […]
Women Count: Women Hired Off-Broadway 2010-2017
[Selection from February 2018 report, published May 4, 2018 on League of Professional Theatre Women’s Women Count project page.] Women Count: Women Hired Off-Broadway 2010-2017 by Martha Wade Steketee with Judith Binus February 2018 Third in a report series published by League of Professional Theatre Women I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: WOMEN COUNT 2010-2017 Whose plays are being done, who is directing them, […]
Positation in Action: Director Erin Ortman’s Multi-Year Journey with the Arabian Nights
[article originally published in HowlRound, May 2, 2018.] Several coincidences align to admit me to design meetings, workshop readings, and rehearsal rooms for One Thousand Nights and One Day[OTNAOD], a musical based […]
Despite Stiff Staging, Deft Denzel Warms ‘Iceman Cometh’
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, April 27, 2018.] On the page, Eugene O’Neill’s mammoth and imperfect four-act play The Iceman Comethcomes at you through a series of monologues, some […]
This Play Wouldn’t Exist Without Her Students
[Full article published in TDF Stages, April 24, 2018.] How Lucy Thurber’s new drama was inspired by a pair of her pupils Obie-winning playwright Lucy Thurber is as interested in talking […]
Nottage’s Mlima, and His Tusks, Make Incredible ‘Tale’
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, April 17, 2018.] “When I was young I was taught by my grandmother to listen to the night.” The shirtless and magnificent Sahr Ngaujah kicks […]
Outdated ‘Children of a Lesser God’ Falls on Deaf Ears
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, April 12, 2018.] Sarah Norman, played by the luminous and graceful Lauren Ridloff in the new Broadway revival of Mark Medoff’s 1979 play, Children of […]
‘Three Tall Women’: A Memory Play Through Class and Mirrors
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, March 31, 2018.] Director Joe Mantello has crafted an exquisite waltz of a revival of Edward Albee’s 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning Three Tall Women, in which three phases […]
